For the past 50 years the Kahl family has grown almonds commercially in California. During that time we have farmed many different varieties of almonds and have had many chance seedlings sprout and grow into young trees. Sometimes these seedlings were transplanted and grafted to standard varieties, but occasionally one would escape grafting, bear a heavy crop of nuts at an early age, and be kept for further evaluation as a potential commercial variety. One such chance seedling sprouted in our orchard in 1972 and survived our evaluation to become a mature tree.
The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of almond tree, which has been denominated varietally as "Kahl". The present variety was selected by us in a cultivated area of our experimental orchard at near Le Grand, Calif. in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). This seedling resulted as a chance seedling in a Nonpareil (unpatented), Davey (unpatented), and Mission (unpatented) planting. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of almond tree, we asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the same experimental orchard identified above, and such reproduction of plant and nut characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects.
We originally tested and selected the present variety because of its heavy production and its potential to pollinate Nonpareil, blooming about 3 days later than Nonpareil. With the emergence of the Carmel (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 2,641) as a prominent commercial variety of California, the value of the present variety as a pollinator and co-planter with both Nonpareil and Carmel is substantial.
The present almond variety is most similar to Carmel (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 2,641) by being an early blooming variety that abundantly produces large almonds that harvest after Nonpareil (unpatented), but is distinguished therefrom and an improvement thereon by appearing to be free of budfailure, by being a much larger and more vigorous tree, by harvesting one week earlier, by having a pink blossom instead of white, and by being interfertile with both Nonpareil and Carmel.